It’s long been known that eruptions on the sun, known as solar flares, produce sunquakes, but now scientists have discovered that bursts of solar wind– known as coronal mass ejections – do as well.

The effect is described as like watching a ripple in a pond when a stone is dropped in - except the 'ripples' can shake the star to its centre.

Scientists led by University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory has shown for the first time that sunquakes can be produced during eruptions of magnetic field and charged particles, as the immense magnetic structure blasts off into the Solar System

The first observation of a sunquake was reported in the late 1990s.

During the last decade it has become well established that explosions in the Sun’s atmosphere, known as solar flares, can create sunquakes through the impact of powerful beams of particles which travel into the Sun.

A STRING of natural disasters led by the Japanese tsunami and earthquake sent insurance market Lloyd’s of London crashing to its costliest six months on record, as it posted a first-half loss of £697m.

The specialist insurance market’s loss compared with profits of £628m a year earlier, reflecting a total of £6.7bn in claims during the first half, making it the costliest six-month period in Lloyd’s 323-year history.

The unprecedented claims total included £2.7bn in catastrophe-related claims, more than 10 times Lloyd’s average disaster loss during the first six months of the year.

Insurers have been battered by a glut of natural disasters between January and May, resulting in many posting heavy half-year losses.

As well as the devastating Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March, insurers have been hit by New Zealand’s earthquake, heavy flooding in Australia and tornadoes in the US.

Lloyd’s said 2011 is already shaping up to be the second most expensive year ever for insurers. However, the insurance market, which is made up of 88 underwriting syndicates, said it is strong enough to cope with a potential further spate of big claims.

Piers Corbyn has recently posted his latest WeatherAction Earthquake "trial" forecast for April, and I will be reporting on this as the month progresses. The question to answer is, will there be another major Earthquake (7+ or even 8+) accociated with a CME/X flare. It's worth taking another look at the SpaceWeather.com page for March the 10th, and just to read through the X flare event as it unfolded to see if we can match a similar situation during April. One point I came across is that the CME did provoke geomagnetic activity around the poles: CLICK to see FULL report from SpaceWeather.com for 10th March.

....CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field on March 10th around 0630 UT. The impact, albeit weak, did provoke geomagnetic activity around the poles. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras.

X-FLARE: March 9th ended with a powerful solar flare. Earth-orbiting satellites detected an X1.5-class explosion from behemoth sunspot 1166 around 2323 UT. A movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a bright flash of UV radiation plus some material being hurled away from the blast site:

TOKYO — Japan’s economy shrank at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in the first quarter, tipping the country into a recession, as the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disrupted production and prompted consumers to cut back on spending.

The drop-off, reported Thursday, was worse than economists had expected. Among 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, the average projection was for a drop of 1.9 percent.

The figures also indicated Japan’s second consecutive quarter of economic contraction, leading the country, by most assessments, into its second recession in less than three years.

Economists project that the Japanese economy will shrink again in the current quarter, which ends in June, as production continues to falter and weigh on industrial output and exports.

Japan’s most devastating earthquake in the country’s history may have been provoked by the position of the Moon and the processes that are under way on the Sun. The opinion was ventured in an interview with the Voice of Russia by a Russian researcher, Deputy Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geography Arcady Tishkov.

On March 11th, an 8.9 Magnitude earthquake shook a vast area in the centre and northeast of Japan. The seismic focus was at the depth of 10 kilometres under the Pacific bottom, near the northeastern part of Japan’s main island, Honshu Island. A 10-metre high tidal wave hit the coastline, followed by another shock. Hundreds of people have died, enormous damage has been done to several cities, transport performance and communications have been disrupted. A disaster of such a devastating scale could be provoked by the Moon and the Sun, says Deputy Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geography Arcady Tishkov, and elaborates.

It is held, Arcady Tishkov says, that the Earth’s seismic activity cycles are directly involved with solar weather. The Sun shoots out streams of protons that affect the Earth’s activity. That’s number one. Number two, the Moon will now be located at the closest distance from the Earth, which, combined with solar influence, may affect the activity of the oceans, namely the high tide - low tide frequency. When the exorbitant mass of the Pacific’s water reserve with its enormous capacitive lag changes the frequency of its high tide – low tide regime, this could certainly affect the local chain of volcanoes, - the so-called Pacific belt of fire.